Sophie Lanigan: Between City and Sea: The Design of Coastal Urban Seascapes with Oysters as an Architectural Response to Climate Change

Supervisor: Dr Irit Katz

Research overview:

The perimeter trace between land and sea - the coast - is a rich threshold for life. Yet, as sea levels rise and storms become more frequent, this threshold breaks beyond the confines of a thin line into a coastal condition. The tide is encroaching on land and in turn spatial development is encroaching on the sea - the line of the coast is becoming thicker. Through an exploration of the notion of the boundary, new materialist approaches to design with living organisms and subjects of care along the coast, this PhD dissertation aims to explore how design interventions meditate this boundary to serve human and non-human subjects. It also calls into question the place of seascapes in landscape architectural discourse. By examining ‘oyster-tecture’, realised seascape interventions using oysters, in Sydney and New York the research aims to offer new insights about how to design the boundary of the land and sea in urban centres. In response to the coincidence of a need to act on climate change and coastal migration, this dissertation explores the mediation of people and nature through designed interventions along the coast. It proposes that the problem is anthropocentric, but that the solution is not.

Biography:

Sophie’s work is focused on the design of coastal urban seascapes and is explored primarily through a PhD in Architecture funded by the Christ College Award and Levy Plumb Fund. She holds a Master of Arts from the Architecture Association London and a Bachelor of Design in Architecture from the University of Sydney. She is the founder of Sophie Lanigan Projects, a research-based design practice, previously served as Editor-in-Chief of Union Magazine and convened the 2023 City Seminars Program.